It is always good to see a case involving the rigging of public contracts brought to justice, but it is disheartening when the wrongdoing involves some of the poorest school districts in our community.

Children in low property-wealth districts have so much to overcome without throwing graft and corruption into the mix. It is unconscionable that anyone would seek to siphon from the meager funds of school districts for personal gain.

While the money in the alleged schemes was not taken directly from the school districts’ general fund, there is no doubt the money that changed hands under the table was included as the cost of doing business when bids for insurance services were submitted. The unsuspecting taxpayer was left footing a higher tab.

Three people have been charged in the contract fraud, but Cerna’s guilty plea in federal court on a charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud hints of a larger conspiracy.

Samuel Mullen, one of Cerna’s insurance industry colleagues, was indicted and arrested last month in the Rio Grande Valley on similar charges. William Oliver Haff, a San Antonio insurance consultant, pleaded guilty earlier this year to his role in the scheme.

Court documents indicate that the rigged insurance contracting occurred at the San Antonio, Edgewood and South San Antonio school districts and the now-defunct Bexar Metropolitan Water District, whose operations were taken over by the San Antonio Water System in 2012. Those same documents also hint of unindicted co-conspirators.

We thought the troubling “pay to play” culture among those doing business with local school districts had changed after the public corruption scandal that rocked the community in 2001. Apparently not. The criminal activity alleged in the recent indictment occurred between March 2007 and June 2014.

We cannot allow history to keep repeating itself. All those connected in this latest scheme to defraud children in Bexar County public schools need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The fact that these are nonviolent, white-collar crimes does not diminish the severity of this illegal activity.